Lexington

If Bush loses...

Expect a few defenestrations in the Republican Party, but not a bloodbath

IN THE wake of George Bush senior's defeat in 1992, the Republican Party had a collective nervous breakdown. One of the many bizarre manifestations of the breakdown took place at the Heritage Foundation: a group of young conservatives filled a hall with friends before marching in carrying a plastic head of the former president on a plate. The plate was covered with blood-coloured crêpe paper—and the young activists were almost as jubilant as the triumphant Clintonites down in Little Rock.

What will happen to the Republican Party if the younger Bush goes the same way as his father next Tuesday? Everything depends on how much he loses by, of course. But let's assume that the opinion polls are right and any defeat is marginal rather than catastrophic. And let's assume that the Republicans retain control of at least one chamber of Congress. What then?

Grover Norquist, a Republican who runs Americans for Tax Reform, has a blunt answer to the question: “Nothing.” That looks optimistic. Several groups of people can be expected to get it in the neck. The first are the incompetent realists, which is shorthand for Donald Rumsfeld; had smug old Rummy not made so many mistakes on Iraq, Mr Bush would still be a shoo-in. The neo-conservatives will also be in the firing line for their dreamy depictions of Middle Eastern democracy, though they will surely reappear in another incarnation. If the polls show Mr Bush doing badly with, say, suburban women because of his “southern” stands on stem cells and gay marriage, a few murmurs may be heard even from libertarians. And just about everybody—including, probably, Mr Norquist—will blame Mr Bush's spending binge, known as “big-government conservatism”.

So big-government conservatism would go. But what else? You can expect some intellectual fireworks in small-circulation magazines and perhaps the odd public beheading of Bush courtiers (Rummy had better write his memoirs quickly). But don't expect these fireworks to generate a long-running civil war.

First, conservatives have embraced the son in a way they never embraced the father. This is not only because Mr Bush has provided the various conservative tribes with all the red meat they crave—from tax cuts to opposition to homosexual marriage. They also like the cut of his jib. They like his set-a-clear-goal-and-stick-to-it leadership style. And they like his willingness to take difficult decisions even if they mean a rocky ride. The majority of conservatives approved of getting rid of Saddam, even if they now lament the pussyfooted execution of the war.

America's supercharged political atmosphere has solidified Republican support behind the president. When the other side calls your man a village-idiot-turned-Texan-Hitler, your inclination is to stick with him. And that support will be solidified further if Republicans are required to watch scenes of Parisians and Palestinians celebrating Mr Bush's defeat. Mr Bush will return to Crawford as a Republican hero-cum-elder-statesman. And his many friends in the Republican establishment will do everything in their power to wangle him the one job he has always wanted—baseball commissioner.

The second reason for cohesion is that the Republican Party will still have plenty of power centres it can use to impose discipline and motivate the faithful. The balance of power in the party will inevitably shift back to Congress—and particularly to the House of Representatives (where Dennis Hastert, the speaker, and Tom DeLay, the majority leader, are past-masters at keeping the party united and at war with the Democrats). But the Republicans will also have a quiverful of energetic governors across the country: Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, who is trying to fashion a new liberal Republicanism in California, and Rick Perry, who is championing tort reform in Texas.

Lastly, this year's presidential campaign has done nothing to discredit either conservatism as a philosophy or the Republican Party as an organisation. John Kerry has failed to mount an intellectual assault on conservatism in the way that Bill Clinton did in 1992. People will be voting for Mr Kerry out of opposition to Mr Bush rather than enthusiasm for an exciting new brand of liberalism. In other circumstances, Karl Rove, Mr Bush's Svengali, might have to make his living in the bed-and-breakfast business with which he once flirted. This time, Republicans might conclude that he made the best out of a terrible hand.

The men-in-waiting

The best chance of a real scrap would await the Republican primaries in 2008. The most exciting candidates are all on the party's libertarian or maverick wings: John McCain, Chuck Hagel, Rudy Giuliani and, just possibly, Mr Schwarzenegger. The leading conservatives all carry heavy burdens: Jeb Bush has his family name (three Bushes is a lot even in such a dynastic country); Bill Frist will have to explain the prescription-drugs boondoggle and his role in big-government conservatism. But the chances are that both sides will be more interested in eating rubber chicken than in philosophical debate. Even a professional maverick like Mr McCain may be less interested in playing the anti-establishment card than he was four years ago, when the entire establishment was rooting for Mr Bush.

The biggest problem for a post-Bush Republican Party would not be a fratricidal battle over the future of conservatism but the possibility of the party morphing all too merrily into a party of opposition. Mr DeLay and his allies are skilled at blocking Democratic legislation. And conservative activists are seldom happier than when they are savaging Democratic politicians—particularly Massachusetts liberals with billionaire wives. The Republicans will relish the chance to do some bashing of their own if Mr Bush loses. But they should remember that winning elections requires more than just standing “athwart history yelling ‘Stop!'.” That will be just as true in four years as it is now.